Display means for solid state electronic timepiece

ABSTRACT

A display device for a solid state electronic timepiece wherein separate indicia to be displayed are disposed on a display surface of said watch and means are provided for selectively visually identifying one or more of said indicia. Said indicia are preferably representative of the days of the week. Each of said indicia may have a liquid crystal or luminous diode display associated therewith which may be selectively energized to identify the desired indicia, or may be covered by a liquid crystal screen which, when selectively energized, obscures all but the desired indicia.

United States Patent I l 3,922,842 Fujita Dec. 2, 1975 I5 DISPLAY MEANSFOR SOLID STATE 3.653.204 7/1970 Miwa a 58/4 A ELECTRON: TIMEPIECE169L755 10/1970 Girard 58/50 R 3.760.584 9/l973 Dargcm 58/4 A [75}inventor: Kinji Fujita, Nagano, Japan {73] Assignee: Kabushiki KaishaSuwa Seikosha,

Tokyo. Japan [22] Filed: Dec. 26, I973 [2 l] Appl. No.: 428,283

Related U.S. Application Data [63} Continuation-impart of Scr. N0.l93.4()4, Oct. 28,

l97l. Pat Nu. 1796,03?

[52] U.S. Cl 58/4 A; 40/107; 58/50 R; 58/58 [51] Int. Cl. G04B 19/24;G04B 19/30; G04B 19/06; GD9D 3/00 [58] Field of Search 40/107. 58/4 R. 4A, 50 R. 58/58. I27 R [56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS3.276198 lO/l bfi Barbera .l 53/4 A Primary E.t'aminer Edith SimmonsJackmun Attorney. Agent, or Firm-Blunt. Moscovitz, Friedman 8.: Kaplan[57] ABSTRACT A display device for a solid state electronic timepiecewherein separate indicia to be displayed are disposed on a displaysurface of said watch and means are pro vided for selectively visuallyidentifying one or more of said indicia. Said indicia are preferablyrepresentative of the days of the week. Each of said indiciai may have aliquid crystal or luminous diode display associated therewith which maybe selectively energized to identify the desired indicia. or may hecovered by a liquid crystal screen which. when selectively cnergized.obscures all but the desired indiciav 2 Claims, 6 Drawing Figures US.Patent Dec. 2, 1975 Sheet 2 of3 3,922,842

FIG. 2

FIG. 3

24/5 DIV/DER I Z/A/V'PTf/Q 7 AMPA #751? US Patent Dec. 2, 1975 Sheet 3of 3 3,922,842

DISPLAY MEANS FOR SOLID STATE ELECTRONIC TIMEPIECE CROSS REFERENCE TORELATED APPLICATION 5 This is a continuation-in-part of application Ser.No. 193,404. which was filed Oct. 28, I971 and is now U.S. Pat. No.3,796,037.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION This application relates to solid stateelectronic timepieces wherein the conventional mechanical componentssuch as gear trains are not included. Such timepieces incorporate timedisplay arrangements which rely on solid displays such as luminousdiodes or liquid crystal displays, in place of the conventional watchhands. Such solid displays are generally driven through an electricaloscillation circuit and a divider circuit.

In such watches, numerals are readily displayed by seven-bar displaymatrices. Each seven-bar display matrix permits the display of anynumeral from O 9 in a single field. This approach permits the display ofdate, hour, minute and second in a clearly readable format. However, asimilar segmented display arrangement cannot be utilized for the displayof the day of the week, since neither the Japanese nor the Englishcharacters can be reduced to the simple matrix required.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Generally speaking, in accordance with theinvention, a display arrangement for a solid state electronic timepieceis provided consisting of a plurality of separate indicia and means forselectively visually identifying a selected one or more of said indiciain response to the time keeping mechanism of said timepiece.

Said visual identifying means may include a plurality of solid displaysegments, one of said segments associated with each of said indicia,said segments being adapted to be rendered visible when energized, meansbeing provided for energizing the segment associated with the indicia tobe visually identified. In another'embodiment, said visual identifyingmeans includes a liquid crystal screen positioned over each of saidindicia, each of said liquid crystal screen being adapted to be disposedeither in a substantially opaque or substan tially transparent stateupon the application of an appropriate signal thereto in response tosaid time keeping mechanism.

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide asimple and clear method of displaying the day of the week.

A further object of the present invention is to provide a solid stateelectronic timepiece adapted to display the day of the week through theapplication of liquid crystal or luminous diode display devices.

Still other objects and advantages of the invention will in part beobvious and will in part be apparent from the specification anddrawings.

The invention accordingly comprises the features of construction,combinations of elements, and arrangement of parts which will beexemplified in the constructions hereinafter set forth, and the scope ofthe invention will be indicated in the claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS For a fuller understanding of theinvention, reference is had to the following description taken inconnection with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. la is a block diagram of the solid state electronic timepieceaccording to the invention;

FIG. lb shows the output wave forms of the arrangement of FIG. Ia;

FIG. 2 is a top plan view of a display panel of a solid state electronictimepiece according to the invention;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an electronic circuit forming an alternateembodiment of the display method according to the invention;

FIG. 4 is a top plan view of a portion of the display panel of a secondembodiment of the electronic timepiece according to the invention; and

FIG. 5 is a fragmentary sectional view ofa portion of the display panelof FIG. 4 depicting a portion of the circuit associated therewith.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Referring now to FIG.1a, the circuit of the solid state electronic timepiece according to theinvention depicted schematically consists of a highly stable oscillatorl which serves as a time standard and may include a crystal vibrator.The output signal of this oscillator is divided into second, minute,hour and day increments by a frequency divider 2. The time signal outputof divider 2 is converted by decoder 3 into the driving signals suitablefor driving a seven-bar display associated with each of the desired timeindication. Said driving signals are amplified by an amplifier 4 and iscoupled to each segment of the seven-bar display constituting thedisplay panel ofthe timepiece. The 24 hour output signal ofdivider 2 isapplied to a divider 5, which may take the form of a ring counter whichis adapted to count seven increments for the purpose of sequentiallyproducing seven separate output signals, one of which is representativeof each of the days ofthe week. The out put ofdivider Sis appliedthrough an amplifier 6 which amplifies said output signal.

The wave form of the respective output signals pro duced by divider 5and amplified by amplifier 6 is depicted in FIG. lb, wherein it is seenthat a distinct output is produced for each of the days of the week,each of said outputs being applied to a separate day indica tor segmentas more particularly shown in FIG. 2.

FIG. 2 depicts one embodiment of a display panel adapted to be driven bythe circuitry of FIG. I. Time is digitally displayed by a liquid crystalor luminous diode display, each of the two digits assigned to hour.minute and second display consisting of a seven bar display matrix. Theday of the week indication is provided by day indicator segments r, eachof which consists of an indicia representative of one of the seven daysof the week, in this case the abbreviation thereof, and an indicatorring surrounding said indicia. The indicia are printed on the face ordial of the panel and are fixed. One ofthe days of the week areidentified by energizing the indicator ring in response to the outputsignal from amplifier 6 associated with that day of the week. Saidindicator rings can take the form of a liquid crystal or luminous diodedisplay. The arrangement of FIG. 2 permits the display of the day of theweek without the use of a complicated matrix or decoder. In the exampleof FIG. 2, the indicator ring associated with Friday is energized,providing an indication that the day of the week is Friday.

Referring new i9 FIG. 3, a second embodiment of the arrangeniEIIIQEEQIQIng to the invention is depicted wherein IIIE twsntyleur hoursignal is applied to a divider 5 which may consist of a ring counter,and which produces seven output signals each of which is associated withone of the days of the week. Said output signals are applied to aninverter 7, in which the polarity of said output signals is reversed. Anamplifier 6 is coupled to the output of inverter 1. The output ofamplifier 6 are applied to the display panel of FIG. 4. In said panel,wherein an array of indicia representative of the day of the weeksimilar to the array of FIG. 2 are positioned about the periphery of thetime indicating display (not shown). The output of amplifier 6 of FIG. 3is applied to screen electrodes S formed of a liquid crystal, which whenenergized obscure the indicia on the display panel. Due to theposition-of inverter 7, six of the seven day of the week indicia areobscured at any one time, providing a visual indication of the day ofthe week, only the desired day of the week indicia being visible.

Referring now to FIG. 5, a cross-section of a portion of the dial ordisplay panel taken through the day indicator segment of FIG. 4 isdepicted. In said arrangement, a glass plate 11 defines the uppersurface of the dial or panel. A liquid crystal 13 is positioned betweensaid upper glass plate 11 and a lower glass plate 15. An upper electrode12 is mounted on upper glass plate II, while a lower electrode 14 ismounted on lower glass plate 15. The day of the week indicia would beprinted below said lower electrode. as on member 16 mounted on the outersurface of lower plate 15. Said upper and lower electrodes arepositioned and dimensioned to overlap and cover the indicia on member16. When an electric field is applied to the electrodes, the liquidcrystal disposed intermediate said electrodes is disturbed and renderedsubstantially opaque, so that the indicia on member 16 are not visible.Both upper electrodes l2 and lower electrode 14 are normallytransparent.

The foregoing arrangement permits the electro-optical display of the dayof the week in a solid state electronic timepiece, which display is bothinexpensive and compact.

It will thus be seen that the objects set forth above, and those madeapparent from the preceding description, are efficiently attained and.since certain changes may be made in the above constructions withoutdeparting from the spirit and scope of the invention, it is 4 intendedthat all matter contained in the above descrip tion or shown in theaccompanying drawings shall be interpreted as illustrative and not in alimiting sense.

It is also to be understood that the following claims are intended tocover all of the generic and specific features of the invention hereindescribed, and all statements of the scope of the invention which. as amatter of language, might be said to fall therebetween.

What is claimed is:

1. In a solid state electronic timepiece having a time keeping mechanismand a time display mechanism responsive to said time keeping mechanism,the improvement which comprises a plurality of separate, normallyvisible indicia other than numerical characters on said timepiece, saidindicia being representative of days of the week, and means in theregion of each indicia but not including said indicia for selectivelyvisually identifying a selected one or more of said indicia in responseto said time keeping mechanism of said timepiece. said visualidentifying means including a plurality of liquid crystal displaysegment means each in the form of a predetermined pattern and adapted tobe rendered visible when energized, one of said display segment meansbeing associated with and positioned in the region of each of saidindicia, each of said display segment means being positioned so as toneither overlie nor be overlied by the associated indicia, each of thedisplay segment means being in the form of a ring surrounding theassociated day of the week indicia, said time keeping mechanismincluding circuit means for producing an output signal for thesequential energization of each of said display segment means during theday of the week of the associated indicia.

2. A solid state electronic timepiece as recited in claim 1, whereinsaid time keeping mechanism includes a time standard oscillator means,frequency dividing circuit means coupled to said time standardoscillator means for dividing the output signal of said time standardoscillator means, said divider means being adapted to produce an outputsignal representative of each of the days of the week, said visualidentifying means being responsive to said divider means output signalfor providing a visual indication of day of the Week.

1. In a solid state electronic timepiece having a time keeping mechanism and a time display mechanism responsive to said time keeping mechanism, the improvement which comprises a plurality of separate, normally visible indicia other than numerical characters on said timepiece, said indicia being representative of days of the week, and means in the region of each indicia but not including said indicia for selectively visually identifying a selected one or more of said indicia in response to said time keeping mechanism of said timepiece, said visual identifying means including a plurality of liquid crystal display segment means each in the form of a predetermined pattern and adapted to be rendered visible when energized, one of said display segment means being associated with and positioned in the region of each of said indicia, each of said display segment means being positioned so as to neither overlie nor be overlied by the associated indicia, each of the display segment means being in the form of a ring surrounding the associated day of the week indicia, said time keeping mechanism including circuit means for producing an output signal for the sequential energization of each of said display segment means during the day of the week of the associated indicia.
 2. A solid state electronic timepiece as recited iN claim 1, wherein said time keeping mechanism includes a time standard oscillator means, frequency dividing circuit means coupled to said time standard oscillator means for dividing the output signal of said time standard oscillator means, said divider means being adapted to produce an output signal representative of each of the days of the week, said visual identifying means being responsive to said divider means output signal for providing a visual indication of day of the week. 